In holographic data storage digital data are stored by recording the interference pattern produced by the superposition of two coherent laser beams, where one beam, the so-called ‘object beam’, is modulated by a spatial light modulator and carries the information to be recorded. The second beam serves as a reference beam. The interference pattern leads to modifications of specific properties of the storage material, which depend on the local intensity of the interference pattern. Reading of a recorded hologram is performed by illuminating the hologram with the reference beam using the same conditions as during recording. This results in the reconstruction of the recorded object beam.
One advantage of holographic data storage is an increased data capacity. Contrary to conventional optical storage media, the volume of the holographic storage medium is used for storing information, not just a few layers. One further advantage of holographic data storage is the possibility to store multiple data in the same volume, e.g. by changing the angle between the two beams or by using shift multiplexing, etc. Furthermore, instead of storing single bits, data are stored as data pages. Typically a data page consists of a matrix of light-dark-patterns, i.e. a two dimensional binary array or an array of grey values, which code multiple bits. This allows to achieve increased data rates in addition to the increased storage density. The data page is imprinted onto the object beam by the spatial light modulator (SLM) and detected with a detector array. A straightforward example of an SLM is an amplitude SLM, where the pixels with the value ‘0’ block the light, and the pixels with the value ‘1’ transmit or reflect it.
In a coaxial or collinear holographic storage system the reference and the object beam are arranged in a coaxial way. This has the advantage that both beams can use a single objective lens, which simplifies the optical setup. However, when the reference and the object beam both pass the objective lens on-axis during writing, during reading the reconstructed object beam is also on-axis with the reference beam. This makes it difficult to extract the information from the reconstructed object beam, since it is superimposed with the many times brighter reference beam. Therefore, a more or less difficult separation of the reconstructed object beam from the reference beam is necessary. This is usually realized by a spatial separation of the beams in the image plane, or with slightly tilted beams in combination with a blocking filter at an intermediate focus plane.
For example, in WO 2004/102542 a coaxial holographic storage system is described, wherein the object beam is spatially separated from the reference beam in the image plane. For this purpose the object beam is surrounded by a ring-shaped reference beam. This means, however, that only a part of the beam can be used for data storage.